Wasteful Society or Grumpy Old Man's Rant?

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brucemillar

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Folks

This has annoyed me probably more than it should. I can't help feeling annoyed at it. What do you think.

I had to visit my local chemist store (large chain that sounds like it could be a bank).

I had to buy a particular brand of wipes (nuff said on that please). Great news they had one packet left on the shelf in the brand that I required and no other brands or packets available.

Pleased at my good fortune I presented my packet to the lady at the counter.

Loose transcript:

Me. I'll take these please.
Lady: One moment sir. (she inspects the packet carefully). I can't sell you these sir.

Me. Why not?
Lady: They are 1 day past their sell by date.

Me. Oh that's fine. I don't mind. They are for me only and are sealed properly. So I'll take hem please.
Lady: (now looking at me like I am mad) No sir, you dont understand? They are past their sell by date so I can't sell them to you.

Me: Oh yes you can. I want to buy them, you have them for sale, I am accepting my actions. Can I have them please.
Lady: No you can't.

Me. Well can I have another packet that is not passed it's sell by date?
Lady: We don't have anymore.

Me. OK then just sell or give these to me as a gift.
Lady: I'm throwing them in the bin !!

Me. Please don't do that. There is nothing with them.
Lady. They are going in the bin. PLOP, GONE.

Me. What if I bought those yesterday?
Lady: That's fine they weren't past their sell by date.

Me: But they would have been today?
Lady. Well they are in the bin now so it doesn't matter.


What a waste of perfectly good stuff. Is there no common sense left? It wasn't perishable goods or life saving drugs. It was a packet of wet wipes.
 
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It seems like out and out madness but as I understand it, it is a fineable offence to sell goods that are beyond the sell by date. Whilst many shops would happily have continued with the sale, I would imagine the bigger the enterprise, the more stringently they adhere to regulations…is this the sort of think Trading Standards would set up a sting for I wonder?
Still wasteful madness though.
 
I too understand the sell by date issue but it's employee's manner that gets my goat.
 
Can't think why wipes would even have a sell by date, they are not perishable, nor will they poison you, worst possible scenario is you open the pack and they are not as moist as you might expect. Valid rant, Sir.
 
I bet she'd have use them to clean her pearl necklace.



That's a level you're more familiar with eh Bruce? :cool:
 
I too understand the sell by date issue but it's employee's manner that gets my goat.

How many times can she say i am sorry i cant sell them to you....rules is rules!
fair play to the sales assistant for not losing her patience with a problem customer.

Tony.
 
I think these people are put in place to try and wind us up.

I don't argue with people like this anymore, you can't win, and they do it because it's a little power trip for them. If you ask for a manager they just back up their staff member.

As soon as she said no, I'd have just turned and walked away without saying anything else.
 
Your loose transcript makes her seem like a complete robotic jobsworth, but I'm assuming in real life she was much more apologetic and reasonable, explaining that she agrees it's daft, but them's the rules and it's not worth her job to contravene them?

Still, agreed, it seems more and more things in society, law, etc is coming down to binary "is it, or isn't it" questions, with no grey area, as grey areas rely on the discretion of the person and that makes them accountable.
 
Can't think why wipes would even have a sell by date, they are not perishable

That's why it's a sell by, not a use by date. It's because they don't want old stock cluttering the shelves when new branding, packaging, etc might have been updated.

Without that date we'd still see fairy liquid in the old style bottle as the shop wouldn't bin it, and nobody would buy it as they'd pick up the "new" one in the shiny new packaging design.
 
That's why it's a sell by, not a use by date. It's because they don't want old stock cluttering the shelves when new branding, packaging, etc might have been updated.

Without that date we'd still see fairy liquid in the old style bottle as the shop wouldn't bin it, and nobody would buy it as they'd pick up the "new" one in the shiny new packaging design.

It's not illegal to sell it though.

I think (but admit I'm not certain of this) only stuff that has passed the use by date can't be legally sold.
 
I bet she'd have use them to clean her pearl necklace.



That's a level you're more familiar with eh Bruce? :cool:
FFS sake there's no let up with you !!!
 
wet wipes have sell by dates? We buy plenty for looking after our foster child but i'd never considered they had a sell by date. shop assistants manner very wierd.

Rant away
 
wet wipes have sell by dates? We buy plenty for looking after our foster child but i'd never considered they had a sell by date. shop assistants manner very wierd.

Rant away

Intrgued by this I just looked at the "adult" ones in our bathroom and there's definity no date code type stuff at all.

Some baby wipes we have for Granddaughters' visits do have some sort of batch code and even what looks like the time, but nothing that is readable as a date.
 
Never personally noticed 'sell by' on anything other than food products which can be past their best (but otherwise OK). 'Use by' (or 'expiry' on medicines etc.) is a different matter.

I agree though it sounds like the sales assistant was just doing her job and could have been in trouble with the employer if caught selling you the packet. The issue was with the packaging/labelling really - you could drop an email to the manufacturer?
 
^If you dare.:D:D
I can't , the PC brigade would go bonkers. Not bonkers as in "bonk hers" but as in crazy. You see what you've done here.
 
Not wanting to hijack Bruce's thread but had a similar experience with the lady in the garage recently when I filled up and realised I had left my wallet at home

Despite reassuring her that I lived no more than 5 mins away, and had given her all the personal details I could, she insisted on trying to find a "form" for me to complete. If she went through the pile once she must have gone through it about a dozen times.
I suggested that in the time she had taken I would have been home and back again but " the rules" statement appeared. Strangely she never located the form so I left, drove home and back and paid as I said I would.
It just took a lot longer to get the issue resolved than it should have. Doh!
 

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